Hundreds of suspect workers banned from being with kids, disabled and elderly

Record numbers of dangerous people have been banned from volunteering or working in childcare, disability and aged care.

Record numbers of people deemed dangerous to children, the disabled and the aged have had their permission to work and volunteer revoked in the past year.

The number of state government safety check failures has blown out from 119 in 2019-20 to 245 for 2020-21.

Child Protection Minister Michelle Lensink said the huge jump was partly due to protection checks for people working with children being made compulsory by law in July 2019.

Minister for Human Services Michelle Lensink. Picture: David Mariuz

“Our clear message to the minority of South Australians who engage in illegal and completely unacceptable behaviour is – you will be caught out if you break the law,’’ she said.

The increase was also affected by greater vigilance of “bad apples” in the system since 2017, when a recommendation from the 2016 Nyland royal commission came into force.

It introduced real-time checks for people who fall foul of the law for “drugs, violence or sexual assault” must quickly be cross-checked with employment and volunteer organisations.

This meant the system could immediately update and not wait for three-yearly checks.

It came after the commission discovered that risky offenders had been able to continue working with the vulnerable despite the justice system knowing of the danger they posed.

The Department of Human Services, SA Police and the Child Protection Department are now required to update their findings every day.

Now if a person is banned, the organisation they are involved with is immediately notified.

Since July 2018, the numbers of annual failed checks of people already working with the vulnerable has more than tripled from 80, and the numbers do not include those seeking to work with the vulnerable for the first time.

Between July 2017 and August 2021, a total of 636 screening checks have caused working with the vulnerable rights to be revoked for those in the system.

Risky individuals who have been taken out of the system were facing charges including:

■ Causingserious harm;

■ Aggravatedassault against a child or spouse or

■ Drug trafficking

People who have lost their right to work or volunteer with children dominate the bans – almost doubling from 106 revoked to 194 in 2020-21.

“Also since making volunteer screening checks free for all South Australians, the government has significantly lowered costs for volunteer organisations delivering more than $8m back into their pockets,’’ Ms Lensink said.

“Under Labor, volunteer organisations were hit with individual screening checks costing $59.40 each.”